art

This replica of the M8 Avenger Assault rifle from Mass Effect may well be the coolest replica ever made from a video game. The builder is Harrison Krix, a self-proclaimed 28-year-old dork working in graphic design that makes replica props in his free time and does a fantastic job of it.

Ever wanted your living room wall to look like the inner lining of a lung? If so, you need to talk to Nils Voelker: his latest project, called "one hundred and eight", takes 108 garbage bags and then uses 216 computer-controlled CPU cooling fans to selectively inflate and deflate them. The resulting wall-mounted installation is bizarrely hypnotic.

While we wouldn't argue with some kitchen/hospital crossovers - better food while you're recuperating would be nice - we can't help but think designing a toaster to look like a defibrillator opens up all manner of potential pratfalls. The handiwork of Shay Carmon, toast/e/r is tongue-in-cheek billed as a way to "revive your old bread".

When Steve Jobs said that the iPad offered "Freedom from porn" last month, it was just the latest in a series of digs against rival platforms - Android, PCs - that allow risque content to be viewed. The Apple CEO probably didn't expect it to kick start a guerilla street art campaign, though; that, however, is exactly what has happened. Apple adverts near the Moscone center where Apple held their WWDC 2010 keynote earlier this week were modified using self-adhesive overlays that changed the generic content into something a little more smutty.

If HP's inkjets were as interesting as this DIY Facade Printer, the company wouldn't have had to buy Palm just to get some press coverage. The handiwork of German product designers and engineers Martin Fussenegger, Michael Haas and Julian Adenauer, the inkjet-with-attitude is capable of precisely firing individual colored dots from up to 20 feet away, creating huge - and surprisingly accurate - murals on whatever wall is unlucky enough to get in the way.

I have never broken a bone despite the fact that I frequently jumped off the roof of my house as a kid and ran wild on a three-wheeler with no parental supervision at an early age. My cousin on the other hand could break a bone if he farted too hard. We are sort of like Mr. Glass and David Dunn from Unbreakable.

One thing we didn't see when we visited Texas Instruments last week were the fruits of the company's Attenborough Design Group, the experimental research group who, in 1972, designed this Gesundheit Radio. Of course, that's probably because there was no such group; the radio - which incorporates a set of bellows and sneezes periodically, so as to remove dust from the sensitive microprocessors - is actually the handiwork of design student James Chambers, who felt a comprehensive back-story could only help his project.

When you're facing down an inbox full of press releases and an empty frontpage, the prospect of pausing time sounds like a tempting one. Artist Ryan Harc can't quite offer mastery over the aging process, but if you're of the opinion that what you haven't seen can't hurt you then his Time Switch may have all the denial you need.

We like a good automaton here at SlashGear, and if it manages to reproduce an internet meme then all the better. Jon Haddock's hand-cranked model is titled "Andrew Meyer (Don't Tase Me Bro)" and reproduces the infamous 2007 University of Florida Taser incident.

It may look like an Apple MacBook - albeit one pretty thoroughly bleached - but this is actually a school project. Kyle Buckner crafted this 3/4-scale MacBook model out of wood, with a hand-cut working hinge, and then filled in the details with a pencil.